Judicial Transformations

The Rights Revolution in the Courts of Europe

Mitchel de S.-O.-l'E. Lasser

Explains the European fundamental rights revolution and its role in the transformation of law and legal culture in Europe

Examines the effects of judicial interaction between European and domestic courts, and the two European high courts - the ECJ and ECtHR

Offers a detailed case-study of the European "fair trial" litigation over the decision-making procedure of the French supreme courts

Judicial Transformations

The Rights Revolution in the Courts of Europe

Mitchel de S.-O.-l'E. Lasser

Description

Fundamental rights are exploding across all areas of law in Europe. This rights revolution is transforming European judicial culture and the judge>'s political role at breakneck speed. Not only have fundamental rights become an integral part of litigation in the domestic and European courts, but their advent has provoked an ongoing revolution in French and European procedural, doctrinal, institutional and conceptual structures.

Grounded in comparative law and political science, this book tells the story of the rights revolution. Part of the story is social and intellectual. As the polity has become increasingly complicated both nationally and transnationally, fundamental rights have emerged as a lingua franca within and across European jurisdictions: they offer a pool of common legal terms that address the diversity of interests now litigating in the domestic and European courts.

But that is not the entire story. The fundamental rights revolution is also a product of the complex - and often competitive - inter-institutional dynamics that characterize the judicial arena in our ever more globalized legal space. European legal controversies increasingly play out at the jurisdictional intersection of a range of domestic and supranational high courts, which must interact and coordinate as never before. This growing inter-institutional interface has taken on a competitive logic and inflationary force of its own.

The result has been a group dynamic that has reinforced the ubiquity and preeminence of fundamental rights throughout the European legal field. Almost every European judicial player now faces powerful pressures to jump on the fundamental rights bandwagon or be left intellectually and institutionally behind. This has prompted a frantic race to master and lead the emergent fundamental rights regime.

In telling the story of the rights revolution, the book makes a substantial contribution to understanding the current dynamics of European judiciaries, and the depth of the impact of transnational law on domestic legal culture.

Judicial Transformations

The Rights Revolution in the Courts of Europe

Mitchel de S.-O.-l'E. Lasser

Table of Contents

1. Introduction: Comparative Dynamics2. Entrenched Structures and Meanings3. External Pressures on the Inside (I): The New Individual Rights Regime4. External Pressures on the Inside (II): The ECHR's "Fair Trial" Jurisprudence5. Internal Pressures on the Inside (I): The Redoubtable Trio6. Internal Pressures on the Inside (II): The Opposition7. Inside Pressures on the Outside: The Domestic Interpretive Construction of European law8. External Pressures on the Outside: Constructing a Familiar European Judicial Order9. Pre-Conclusion: Major Shifts or Minor Adjustments?10. Assessment: Judicial Orders in Flux11. Epilogue

Judicial Transformations

The Rights Revolution in the Courts of Europe

Mitchel de S.-O.-l'E. Lasser

Reviews and Awards

"(Lasser) certainly succeeds in showing that French law offers a consistent and valid alternative to the prevalent American legal hegemony. He deals well too with the dynamism of the model, presenting a rounded picture of internal debates surrounding reform...Lasser is always readable; his is indeed the most enjoyable full-length study of comparative law that this reviewer has read for a long time." --Carol Harlow, The Modern Law Review